I like this "turn of events" where the subject of the discussion is somewhat self-referential and is peeling away it's own veneers as it were.
Regarding "false humility", I find myself *avoiding* those qualifiers sometimes *out of respect* to my audience. I feel like, in a group like this, that those qualifiers are painfully implicit, especially among regular contributors. For example, I don't read Frank as "aggressively authoritative" (or was it authoritarian) at all, but perhaps because I've spent a little time with him in person and recognize that in a long and interesting life, he has lots of direct or second order encounters with various "authorities" in different fields, who he can quote with ... ahem... "authority of personal experience". (and I may be mischaracterizing this for Frank, so he may need to correct what I impute/impugne here). I believe we are generally agreed here that we don't trust "proof by authority" but most of us still defer to authority for a shared sense of what has gone before, what is generally accepted, from whence the language of a topic is rooted. I think this extra level of "signalling" you refer to is deeply instinctual and helps to reinforce (for better AND worse) ingroup/outgroup structures... which we tend to think of as *bad things* but in fact, I believe that the self-other boundary is key to complex organization. CHON molecules form lipid and protein and carbohydrate chains which then combine and/or fold into macromolecules which then self-organize into larger structures like cytoskeletal membrane, cell walls, etc. which continue to "stack" via self-other differentiation/aggregation on up in complexity. I'm not sure how many identifiable layers deep of such stacking humans are (with the conscious mind as an emergent property of the hominid or mammalian or vertebrate neurology), but the self-other differentiation is right in the middle of it all. mumble, - Steve > Ha! Nice one. We have only the "apparently" qualifier to guide our decoder > choice. > > I forget the phrase Jon used, but I thought "humility signalling" when he > mentioned it and I described being accused of false humility (in a friendly > way). By peppering one's assertions with "I think" and "in my opinion" and/or > regularly denigrating oneself (all of which I do a lot), yet continuing to > *act* arrogant and defending one's assertions to the grave, have we descended > to playing some game of false humility? ... are we expected to pepper > everything we say this way and purposefully hide our arrogance and > self-centeredness? > > I honestly have no idea. I could easily be a raging narcissist who's > *learned* to manipulate people by peppering my language with self-denigration > and IMO qualifiers. Or (as it feels internally), I am actually scared to > death that I'm a moron surrounded by super-intelligent beings and I'm just > desparate to stay in the game. I seriously have no idea which is the case ... > probably a little bit of both. 8^D > > > On 5/21/20 8:46 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote: >> Bendito Espinoza (Spanish version) apparently did not believe in the >> transcendent God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Nor did he believe that men >> are constrained by the Ten Commandments*. He was declared "herem", a very >> severe action. >> [...] >> Said without authoritatian motive. > -- --- .-. . .-.. --- -.-. -.- ... -..-. .- .-. . -..-. - .... . -..-. . ... ... . -. - .. .- .-.. -..-. .-- --- .-. -.- . .-. ... FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
